Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekig5!waynekn
From: waynekn@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A new Amiga from Japan?
Message-ID: <5371@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 90 22:10:56 GMT
References: <5366@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> <9307@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 43

In article <9307@cbmvax.commodore.com>, daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
> > Some of these programs really impressed me, and when I saw them I said 
> > to myself - "There is no way I could ever get this working on my Amiga."
> 
> Where were those? I didn't see any listed.  You couldn't be doubting 
> the ingenuity of Amiga people, could you?  

Mainly two things.  One was database type stuff with massive amounts of
data that really make the program interesting.  I say for two reasons this
would work on the Amiga.  First Commodore doesn't support/push/help/etc
the Amiga users get and use CD-ROMs.  Second, CD-ROMs seem to be much bigger
in Japan than the States with more data/programs/music/whatever out in
the CD-ROM format.  

The other thing that really impressed me was the rate of screen updates
considering the resolution and the number of colors and the high quality
of the graphics.  I maintain that the custom chips and the chip RAM have
become a major bottleneck in the Amiga.  While they were unbelievably fast
when the Amiga first came out, the speed of Amiga graphics are rather
ho-hum by today's standards.  I know since I'm really into real-time stuff
and graphics.  I think the performance of the Amiga in 16 color low-res. is
still pretty good, however I find the 16 color high-res. speed of the 
graphics pretty sub-par.

I now have a 25Mhz 386 with a ITA wonder 512k VGA card, not really the 
hotest thing you can by today, but in the 640x480x256 color mode my programs
run somewhat faster than in the Amiga's 640x400x16 color mode.  On both the
machines the bottleneck is getting the data into the graphics memory as
I have plenty of CPU cycles left over on both.  So I have a relative figure
to go by, but not hard numbers.  The graphics on the FM Towns seemed much
faster than what my 386 does, prehaps they run the bus faster, anyway I
was really impressed.  

I think the Amiga could be upgraded to go much faster, and I hope it is.
I seems like everything except the customs chips and chip RAM have been
improved in the Amiga speed-wise, maybe it is time for an improvement 
there.

                                   Wayne Knapp

P.S. Just to save flames I know all about the Amiga blitter, I even have
my own customs routines that have about 1/3 the overhead of the standard
Amiga blitter routine.